1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, an image forming system, and an image forming method for detecting a marking that has coded identification (ID) of printing paper to reprint an image corresponding to the ID.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a scanner that reads in a manuscript image, a copying machine that prints a manuscript image read in by a scanner, a printer or a facsimile apparatus that prints image data input from outside, or a multifunction product (MFP) that has some or all of these functions, have been used. A technology has been known that reads in from a manuscript a marking such as a two-dimensional barcode where various pieces of information are embedded to control a subsequent printing process or the like based on the embedded information.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-80939 (hereinafter, “Patent document 1”) discloses a technology to detect the two-dimensional barcode that has been added to the manuscript to decode command information that has been coded in the detected two-dimensional barcode, and then, to determine a processing relative to the read-in manuscript according to the decoded command information.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-115020 (hereinafter, “Patent document 2”) discloses a technology to, when the read-in image data includes two-dimensional code information, decode access information to a web server from the two-dimensional code information, and then, to obtain content data depending on the decoded access information to perform a print.
However, each method of the Patent document 1 and the Patent document 2 has a problem that it is not possible to recreate a print setting at the time of printing to print the manuscript, which has been printed in a predetermined unit such as a print job unit or a set unit, per the unit.
For example, because the method of the Patent document 1 only adds the command information that has prescribed a processing content relative to the respective manuscripts, for example, when collectively performing the print in the set unit, all manuscripts that belong to the set need to be prepared to detect the two-dimensional barcode from the respective manuscripts.
The method of the Patent document 2 enables to collectively print the whole content data obtained by referring to the access information. However, the method of the Patent document 2 is not capable of recreating the print setting at the time of printing the content data to perform a reprint. This problem results from the fact that the Patent document 2 originally intends to reduce efforts when obtaining information from an external apparatus and does not intend to read in the barcode or the like added to the manuscript at the time of printing to reprint the manuscript.